Amy Remeikis

Clive Palmer has blamed Australia’s other eponymous political party for Alex Douglas’s decision to quit the Queensland branch of the party, claiming it all came down to family.

Dr Douglas’s announcement, through a statement on Monday, that he was quitting the party he helped start surprised the Queensland political sphere, with Mr Palmer admitting that he did not know about the decision until Dr Douglas announced it.

Mr Palmer, who when re-endorsing Dr Douglas as the leader of the Queensland branch in May described the Gold Coast MP as having “showed courage when others backed away from standing up for the rights of all Queenslanders”, said Dr Douglas had pushed for a merger with Katter’s Australian Party and was disappointed when the PUP ‘executive’ rebuffed the efforts.

“I have spoken to him,” Mr Palmer said when asked if the pair were on speaking terms, “but he didn’t tell me he was resigning, he just resigned.

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“But he strongly has suggested in the past...I think he came out publicly and said we are merging at one time, so he has been saying all the time that we should merge with the Katter Party, so I think if he wants to join the Katter Party, he now has the opportunity.

“...Alex Douglas is Bob Katter’s nephew and so far it [a merger] has been announced about three times, I think Alex is of the view, that he would have liked to see that happen, right, and most of the people who joined our party made a conscious decision to join what we stand for, which is different to what the Katter Party stands for.

Alex Douglas has resigned as the Palmer United Party Queensland leader. Photo: Harrison Saragossi

"So we are two different parties and I don’t think Alex was happy that we weren’t prepared to merge with the Katter Party. And that is what it is about, really.”

KAP MP, Robbie Katter, said it was “no secret” that KAP MPs and PUP MPs had been “working increasingly closer together with the view that we will end up giving the voters a credible third option”.

“It is becoming increasingly important that we realise that we need to work cohesively together to provide good government,” he said.

Mr Katter said he was unaware of any moves by Dr Douglas to join KAP, but the pair had recently discussed a merger.

“We discuss matters of that nature just about every sitting,” he said.

“I am sure we would have discussed issues of that nature [at last week’s sitting] I can’t recall a specific time, but I am sure we would have mentioned something along those lines.”

Dr Douglas did not return Fairfax Media’s calls about Mr Palmer’s claims, preferring to wait until his press conference on Tuesday morning.

But in his statement resigning as leader, with the intention of also leaving the party, Dr Douglas struck out at what he called “jobs for the boys”.

“When I resigned from the LNP in November, 2012, I publicly stated there was a culture in the LNP, and there still is, of looking after mates and relatives, and that I do not support these flawed ideas,” he said.

“...I cannot support, nor will I endorse, actions taken that defeat principles that I strongly adhere to.

“I regret that I have had to take these actions, but I am reliably informed that a list of pre-selected candidates for the Queensland State election, will be announced today on the Palmer United Party’s website.

“I have had no involvement in the pre-selection of candidates.

“From my understanding, this process does not reflect principles which I firmly support.”

Susie Douglas, Dr Douglas’s wife and a previous key figure within the PUP, also resigned from the party on Monday afternoon.

Mr Palmer confirmed that Jim MacAnally, who had been accused of offering LNP MP Michael Hart an inducement to join the PUP by the Burleigh MP, had been preselected to contest Mr Hart's seat at the next election.

Mr MacAnally, who is still under investigation by the parliamentary ethics committee but was cleared by police who found no case to answer for, was the only candidate named in Mr Palmer’s statement, which endorsed his last standing Queensland MP, Carl Judge, as leader, but did not address Dr Douglas’s announcement.

When asked if Mr MacAnally was the candidate who had upset Dr Douglas, Mr Judge said he had “no problems” with Mr MacAnally and was “happy to work with him”, while also expressing his disappointment at Dr Douglas’s decision.

“Politics is not for the faint hearted, it is a challenging occupation and emotions can occur from time to time and that is normal,” he said.

“For him to resign, it is disappointing to me that Dr Douglas has resigned but I am sure that he will continue to represent his constituents and we’ll forge ahead with the job of getting the Palmer United Party to the state election in a very strong position to offer Queensland voters a better chance at democracy.”

Independent MP Peter Wellington, who had been rumoured to run at the next election as a PUP candidate, said he had not spoken to Dr Douglas, but was still willing to work with him.

“My position hasn’t changed. I am running at the next election as an independent and I will work with anyone to get rid of this extreme Liberal National government,” he said.

Mr Wellington, the three Katter MPs, Dr Douglas and Mr Judge had been working in Parliament as a coalition of sorts against the government.

The last time a merger between KAP and PUP was floated was in May, but Mr Palmer quickly dismissed the idea as “never happening”.

36 comments so far

Conservatives biting conservatives.ho humAll da same

Commenter

aa

Date and time

August 12, 2014, 3:26AM

There is nothing conservative about PUP and KAP.

KAP is agrarian socialism reheated, PUP is all about Clive's interests.

Commenter

greg

Date and time

August 12, 2014, 7:34AM

Agree wit you Greg. It's all about Clive, nothing more nothing less

Commenter

J Walker

Date and time

August 12, 2014, 8:19AM

@greg: "There is nothing conservative about PUP and KAP."

KAP is a conservative when it comes to social issues (e.g., anti-gay). One economic issues it takes a more a socialist approach (although they would hate that label). So there is definitely something conservative about KAP.

Yes, PUP is mainly about Clive. But Clive does tend to have a conservative world view. So I would say that PUP is an eclectic (and unpredictable) mix of rank populism, Clive's ego and conservatism in some forms (both social and economic)

Commenter

Mortlock

Date and time

August 12, 2014, 8:26AM

Mortlock

I take extreme offence at your statement linking conservatism to being anti-gay. I am a strong conservative and have absolutely no issues with gays (for info – I have friends who are gay, and before you or anyone else tries the other tack I also have friends of a broad range of races, creeds and colours).

Why do you associate conservatism with anti-gay yet fail to mention that Labor, during its 6 years in office at a Federal level, didn’t legalise gay marriage (Julia actively opposed it)? Making claims that conservatism means anti-gay, racism, etc., particularly without a skerrick of evidence, are slanderous statements and should be soundly condemned by all.

If you want to be able to make such claims, then let’s see evidence that anti-gay (or racism or anything else for that matter) occurs more frequently in the ranks of the conservatives than any political group. Only if such bias is properly proven should such allegation be permitted. I note that regardless of the party n power at any given time, our anti-discrimination authorities have never had cause to investigate any conservative political group for anti-gay, racism, or anything else.

Commenter

John

Location

Canberra

Date and time

August 12, 2014, 9:58AM

@John

Well John I would suggest you look at the Victorian NLP and Young Libs recent vilification of gays, women and everyone else not like them in social media before getting too high on that horse. you are judged by the company you keep. Perhaps you could ask Abetz or Cory B about their views while you are it.

Commenter

TheRedRat

Date and time

August 12, 2014, 10:15AM

TheRedRat

The stupidity of a particular subset of a group can always be found, but is not proof of correlation. I can recount instances of extreme left-wing workers who felt that physically bashing gays was a valid occupation and who rioted when labour of other races was imported to replace them, yet quite correctly I don’t state that this is evidence that the left-wing are all anti-gay and racist. Until you can provide evidence of correlation between anti-gay and/or racism and political orientation then your statements are invalid. Please provide evidence or stop making comments that are unsupported and offensive.

Commenter

John

Location

Canberra

Date and time

August 12, 2014, 11:58AM

TheRedRat - what a weak statement to say someone is judged by the company they keep. First off we vote for politicians we dont keep company with them - most of us will never even meet the party leaders / policy makers. So we don't exactly keep company. But if it's the company we keep you want to link then perhaps we should take over the bank accounts of all Labor voters and manage their funds for them... they obviously can't balance their own budgets given the company they keep.

As for your other comment content - I didn't know until today that two wrongs actually do make a right according to Labor supporters. Labor had a chance to address gay marriage and they didn't, along with many other social elements like retirement, welfare etc they ignored.

John raised some valid points which you've completely ignored in your blind party support.

Commenter

TC

Date and time

August 12, 2014, 12:04PM

@John

Being anti-gay is almost the very definition of social conservatism. Economic conservatism and legal/constitutional conservatism are the other aspects of the traditional "conservative". Other aspects of social conservatism have traditionally included racism and sexism.

KAP, and previously One Nation, are very much social conservatives.

Commenter

Carnivean

Date and time

August 12, 2014, 12:06PM

@john. The top echelon of the conservative LNP are all staunch catholics, with a couple of them being acolytes of the late BA Santamaria. I would suggest that they definitely are anti-gay but happy to say anything to keep their seats. That of course does not mean all conservatives are of that ilk but if you are prepared to vote for these people, then be prepared to accept 'their' beliefs as a way forward for our country.